Gas cylinders are widely used in medical and industrial settings for the dispensing of gases and mixtures of gases such as oxygen, nitrogen, helium, nitrous oxide, heliox, nitric oxide, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, xenon, etc. While often cylinders included a visible means to indicate current cylinder contents with either mechanical or electronic manometers, the information is not transmitted to users as it relates to the current usage situation and often requires further processing of the information by the user to produce useful information. In the medical setting, the determination of time remaining relative to the current use rate of the gas cylinder is performed from tables and charts that are not always readily accessible leading to the non-continuous monitoring of patients and reduced patient safety. In industrial settings, cylinders are often used to provide calibration gases for critical process equipment where calibrations take extended periods of time with operators often stepping away to conduct other activities.
As valve integrated pressure regulator devices with electronic manometers and digital displays become more commonplace in medical and industrial settings, there is a need to make such devices more reliable, more ergonomic, and generally easier to use and maintain by the end-user. It is therefore an objective of the present invention to improve the maintainability, and availability of the valve integrated pressure regulator devices for the end-user and to make such valve integrated pressure regulator devices with digital displays generally easier to use. Such advantages are achieved by providing or designing a shroud that provides easy access to a removable battery and to the electronics associated with the digital display. The shroud with a removal access panel, described herein, facilitates removal and replacement of the battery and electronics associated with the digital or electronic display without complete disassembly of the shroud and without exposing the valve integrated pressure regulator to potentially damaging forces or events.
In addition, it is a further objective to improve the reliability of valve integrated pressure regulator devices with digital displays by eliminating one or more mechanical position sensors. By coupling the activation of the digital display of the valve integrated pressure regulator device with changes in the pressure within the gas cylinder, the use of mechanical position sensing switches can be avoided improving the reliability of such devices, as such mechanical switches tend to fail more frequently than the pressure sensors in the valve integrated pressure regulator. Such features improve the reliability, maintainability, and availability of the valve integrated pressure regulator devices for the end-user.